FORT WORTH, Texas—Jimmie Johnson has won five Sprint Cup titles by proving that just when people think he might be about to break, he delivers a deflating blow.

So in some ways, Johnson's winning pole position for Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway was vintage Jimmie.

Ranking 27th in Friday afternoon's practice session, Johnson gave his competitors a false sense of security. Then, he put down a wicked lap of 191.076 mph around the 1.5-mile oval to earn the No. 1 starting spot for the AAA Texas 500.

"That was a white-knuckled lap," Johnson said. "I'd say I didn't leave anything on the table with that one. There were a couple of opportunities to lose control.

"I stayed on the throttle and kept the car pointed in the right direction."

Johnson, who has a two-point lead on Brad Keselowski with three races left in the season, will get his choice of pit stall and have everyone chasing him Sunday afternoon. Green flag is scheduled for 3:16 p.m. ET. Check the starting grid.

"The pole, as you get closer to the end of the year, they feel like they mean a little bit more," said Johnson, who was just hoping for a top-10 position.

"But it's just another pole — not saying that in a negative way. But the benefits that come with it are the same that you would have at any other track.

"We have 500 long, grueling miles on Sunday. So we won a battle today but the larger battle is definitely on Sunday."

Keselowski will chase him from the eighth starting spot. On Friday he watched Johnson win his second consecutive pole and third in the eight Chase for the Sprint Cup races.

Keselowski, who drives for Penske Racing, said he didn't think much about his Hendrick Motorsports counterpart struggling in prelims.

Practice "gets read into quite a bit more than it should," Keselowski said. "There's so many variables that exist in practice that don't exist in qualifying and the race that you almost can't look too much at that.

"You have to look at it some but it's usually never enough to feel as good or bad as what everybody wants to feel about it."

Last week at Martinsville, Johnson sat in his car after his qualifying lap until everyone had turned their laps. He did the same thing Friday, waiting about 45 minutes before coming out to celebrate winning the pole.

"I was ready to get out and my engine tuner stuck his head in the car and said, 'Hey man, you're going to be sitting here for a long time this week,' " Johnson said. "And I went, 'Oh yeah, that's right. I'm not superstitious but I'll sit here.'

"So I sat there. It doesn't mean anything. But at this point in the season, you've got to pull out all the stops."

Johnson won the pole by a tenth of a second as Greg Biffle had a speed of 190.382 to join Johnson on the front row.

Biffle was surprised that Johnson turned such a good lap. While Johnson was surprised a little bit, he wasn't totally shocked.

"When we unloaded in (qualifying) trim and the track was cool and the first run or two, we were just off," Johnson said. "We didn't have the car right. We got the car pretty close by the end of practice but the pace had fallen off so much.

"We weren't totally happy when practice ended but we felt a lot better than what the chart showed."